Pressure waves are commonly used in a diverse array of applications and may be acoustic if in the range of human hearing, infrasound if below the range of human hearing, or ultrasound if above the range of human hearing. Ultrasound, also referred to as ultrasonic, is of particular importance due to its short wavelength which is required for many sensing and imaging applications. Ultrasound imaging, commonly referred to as ultrasonic imaging, is used in both veterinary medicine and human medicine as a non-invasive diagnostic tool. Medical sonography is the real time generation of visual images from information captured by an ultrasonic imaging method.
The process of ultrasonic imaging is based on the controlled generation, transmission, and reception of ultrasound pressure waves. Devices that convert electrical signals to ultrasound pressure waves or ultrasound pressure waves to electrical signals are commonly called ultrasound transducers. An ultrasonic transmitter is required to generate and transmit ultrasound pressure waves while an ultrasonic receiver is required to receive the ultrasound pressure waves. A combined ultrasonic transmitter and ultrasonic receiver is called an ultrasonic transceiver. In some applications an ultrasonic transceiver is used while in others both an ultrasonic transmitter and ultrasonic receiver are used. In some cases, the magnitude of received and transmitted ultrasonic waves may be differ substantially, e.g. by a factor of 100.
Ultrasonic imaging quality depends directly on the characteristics of the ultrasonic devices used to perform the imaging process. Improvement of the characteristics of ultrasonic devices may improve the quality of ultrasonic imaging processes.